User talk:Dallan/Archive 2017-18

does the server need a reboot? [1 January 2017]

Just wondering. The site is VERY slow today. Slow enough to make one want to click out and leave. We sure don't want that on a weekend holiday! --janiejac 02:02, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I just rebooted it. I hope it helps. Happy new year!--Dallan 06:24, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

GEDOM stuck in system [18 March 2017]

Hi Dallan, I'm copying this email exchange from the watercooler page:

I must have been wrong when I assumed I had rights to get my GEDCOM accepted w/o admin review. It was always accepted so quickly before but today it is taking a long time. I uploaded it at 2:20 this afternoon and still is not accepted so that I can review it. I realize we're short handed or maybe my status has changed??? --janiejac 22:05, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

It looks like it may be stuck on Waiting for analysis. Normally I can review GEDCOMs just fine, but it's currently in a state where I can't do anything. It may need to be re-uploaded, but I'm really not sure.--khaentlahn 22:11, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Janiejac - your admin rights have not changed. I put a request in to Dallan to take a look at that file, so hopefully we'll have an answer soon. He is still the go-to person for files that are stuck in the automated part of the process. In the meantime, can you re-create your GEDCOM under a new name name and try uploading again. If the 2nd version processes normally, please proceed with that one, and leave the 1st version as is. If the 2nd version gets stuck as well, please contact either Dallan or me and we'll go from there. Thanks, --cos1776 11:46, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

The system won't let me upload a renamed GEDCOM. Can you get it unstuck?? I get this msg:

You have a GEDCOM already in process

Before importing a new GEDCOM you need to wait for your earlier GEDCOM to finish importing --janiejac 23:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

The server that processes GEDCOMs crashed. It's up again now and the GEDCOMs that were waiting are ready for user review.--Dallan 06:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

GEDCOM stuck again?? [26 March 2017]

It is quite frustrating to hang around waiting for the GEDCOM to be accepted. I wonder how many folks just leave and don't bother to come back??? Very small GEDCOM uploaded abt 1 o'clock; and it doesn't need admin review. So is it stuck again? --janiejac 18:01, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Jammed up again [22 May 2017]

I think someone has left the GEDCOM review machine unplugged again, Dallan. There's a couple of us have been hanging fire there all morning, "waiting for analysis." --Mike^Talk 16:49, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Follow up: As of this morning, there are 3 still in limbo. I would guess it is a server reboot issue again. I've sent Dallan an email (often works better for reaching him now). Hopefully it will be resolved soon. Thanks for your patience. --cos1776 15:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

And now there are four. And it's been four eight days. Something really needs to be done about this. --Mike^Talk 18:22, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Finally fixed it.--Dallan 02:22, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Want to tidy up a mis-spelling [17 May 2017]

Hi Dallan I was just having a look at New Brunswick, Canada and noticed we have two spellings for Westmorland County with a number of settlaments within both. Would you be kind enough to redirect [[Place:Westmoreland, New Brunswick, Canada|Westmoreland]] to [[Place:Westmorland, New Brunswick, Canada|Westmorland]]. Without the "e" is correct.

Many thanks, --Goldenoldie 14:30, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

All done. --khaentlahn 15:33, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks

--Goldenoldie 15:57, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Quebec--I mean Québec [20 July 2017]

Hi Dallan

The "WeRelate agent" has just added some acute accents to "Quebec" for me. These are in tiny townships which I added in bulk a day or two ago with the intention of coming back and making a better job of a descriptive paragraph and adding links that change from place to place.

Earlier, reading through the proposed alterations we are thinking about making, I wondered if this little problem could be solved in some automatic fashion. At the moment, although I have been told what the code for an acute accent is, I can't figure out how to put it in the text without copying and pasting--an action it is easy enough to forget to do. Ordinary users adding their own French-Canadian ancestors may have little knowledge of French and may not realize that small places (and defunct places) in Quebec all have to have "Québec" in the placename. I am picking up numerous examples with redirects, but I'm not sure I will remember to check "What links here" for every hamlet and township.

Yes, I am trying to sort out Québec, going on from where Jennifer left off a few years ago. Many of the URLs for reference websites have changed over time and Jennifer and I don't have quite the same principles of how to set up a page, so it is slow work. My knowledge of Québec geography is not as great as you might think. I have been very surprised how much schoolgirl French I do remember from 60 years ago. Google Translate is a wonderful tool.

Regards Pat----Goldenoldie 16:03, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

An automated solution could be implemented. What do you think? How about something that checked if you were trying to add a place ending in "Quebec, Canada" and if so, automatically changed the ending to Québec, Canada?

Yes. That's exactly what I was getting at. Off the top of my head I don't know of any other places where we are providing potholes for people to fall into, but that is not to say they don't exist.

Just remembered. Us foreigners don't always know how to spell Massachusetts and Conneticutt/Connecticut?? (aarrrghh!).

/cheers, Pat----Goldenoldie 19:04, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Pat. CONNECT I CUT is how I remembered in 4th grade. For Massachusetts, you're on your own. --SkippyG 20:13, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Pat! During GEDCOM upload, places are matched to the database, so they would be entered and linked correctly (with appropriate accents). Likewise, during manual entry, users can select from the dropdown menu, so places are entered correctly. I'm not sure I understand when this might be a problem? Can you clarify a little more? When do you foresee that users might enter Québec without the accent? There are old occurrences of that, but they are slowly being corrected. Thanks, --cos1776 20:25, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

This conversation just shows how many people have put their own family history notes into a mechanical gedcom and uploaded them to WeRelate. Adjusting red-linked places or just investigating "Who links here" for a place leads to finding all sorts of ways of referring to Québec. Just look at the possibilities listed in "Also known as" under [[Place:Québec, Canada|Québec, Canada]]. I have redirected all the possibilities listed so that they will all be picked up if a user just gives the province, but if a user writes St. Joseph de Beauce, Beauce, Quebec, Canada instead of Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, Beauce, Québec, Canada the place may end up being red-linked. In WeRelate's presentation we see only what is after the pipe; the adjustment that precedes the pipe is invisible until you click "Edit" or aim your cursor at the place on the page. That is not going to make people aware that Quebec is really Québec.

Currently I am trying to improve our provision of descriptions of places in Québec and, as I explained to Dallan, even I can go wrong repeatedly if I don't get my cut-and-paste right.

/cheers, Pat----Goldenoldie 06:02, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

GEDCOM Export Ready [19 September 2017]

The GEDCOM for tree Billings is ready to download. Click here.

GEDCOM Export Ready [19 September 2017]

The GEDCOM for tree Stephenson is ready to download. Click here.

GEDCOM Export Ready [19 September 2017]

The GEDCOM for tree Wells is ready to download. Click here.

server need a reboot?? [8 October 2017]

I can't get any results using the search button on top menu. I even went to Home Page and did a search. Nothing...the little circle just keeps going round and round. --janiejac 19:49, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Page of the Week [8 January 2018]

If you need a featured page of the week, I would be honored to have my Abraham Ross page featured.

Thanks, Pam Pollard Txbluebell6--Txbluebell6 15:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Wales and the United Kingdom [22 January 2018]

Hi Dallan

In June of 2016 we had a long discussion on places and the use of the suggestion box which comes up when a user starts to type something into a place box. At the time you were trying out a revision of the way the hints were provided.

There was never any problem until I got back to tackling Wales a month or two ago. WR policy is to despense with the words "United Kingdom" following the county (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales). This applies to whatever time period we are working with. But all place hints for Wales end in "United Kingdom". Trying to avoid "United Kingdom" often ends up in getting a long phrase with a "|" in the middle when only the first part is needed.

This list on [[Place:Wales|Wales]] may have something to do with it.

Wales, Yorkshire, England could be changed to [[Place:Wales (parish), Yorkshire, England|Wales (parish), Yorkshire, England]]. This has been my solution to naming the "principal areas" of Wales that came into being in 1996 and that may or may not have the same names as towns that existed earlier.

It would be appreciated if you could have a look at this problem--it would speed things up no end.--Goldenoldie 12:22, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Somehow the table that I use for auto-completing places seems to have gotten messed up around the UK. It should include names ending in Wales, but not ending in Wales, United Kingdom as was discussed. I just re-loaded it from scratch. It looks better now to me. Would you please let me know if you see any other problems? Thank you!--Dallan 21:31, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

It's been a busy day and I have just got around to looking at the Wales, United Kingdom problem. Hurray, I can now be lazy and click down rather than writing "----shire, Wales" in full. Hopefully, other users will find this helpful too.

Hate to tell you, but in the meantime I have discovered another frustrating quirk. I found the link to the "MediaWiki:Place types" page and added "Community (Wales)". This is the description of the smallest unit of local administration as divised by the Welsh in 1974 and in country-wide use since that date. Users wanting to know what it means will find a definition in Wikipedia.

Trouble is: in saving the page with the new description, the upper case "W" is automatically converted to lower case and then the saving-page mechanism refuses to recognize it as an acceptable type of place. So I go back, change the lower-case "w" that is now there to upper case, save the page again, and guess what? ---- Since I am only willing to go round in circles twice, I end up calling the place a "community", a definition that could mean anything anyone might want to think of.

I hope this is a simple correction too.

regards, Pat--Goldenoldie 19:24, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I was curious what you were up to with that. Perhaps "Community" should only be used for Wales. Elsewhere a community would more properly be described as an "Inhabited place". It would be nice if the place types could have associated descriptions that wouldn't be a part of the type name which would then give users an idea of how the type is used. Then you could give the Community a description like "Welsh unit of government". -Moverton 20:51, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree, but this needs re-creating the type descriptions as a table. The first column would be used as currently; the second for guidance. The table would be simple, but the software to go with it would call for someone with know-how. --Goldenoldie 07:58, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it lower-cases the W. I'll look into this on Sunday.--Dallan 13:56, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

This should be fixed now.--Dallan 15:33, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Changes to WeRelate on evening of May 12 [14 May 2018]

Hi, Since about 9 p.m. PDT the place field stopped auto fill on both the new person page and the source page. An example - I typed in Palmer, Mass expecting auto fill to choose Palmer, Hampden, Massachusetts, United States, but that didn't happen. Since the place field still is not functioning as in the past, I thought I would drop you a line to see if this is going to be fixed or if it is now an issue only on my computer. Thanks, --Susan Irish 05:47, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

I just tried it, and it seems to be working fine on my computer. (I haven't made any changes recently.) It may just be your computer. If things still don't work after the standard things: clear your cache, re-boot, would you let me know? I can give you some instructions on how to perform diagnostics that will help us get to the bottom of it.--Dallan 14:18, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

It is working fine now. Thanks, --Susan Irish 17:25, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Fantastic project but I need my data deleted [16 May 2018]

I want to first say that this is an amazing, detailed and valuable project! I will use my enormous, multi page warning list to correct as many errors in my sloppy Ancestry.com tree as I can. However I am not renewing my ancestry.com subscription in a couple days and I don't know if I will have any access thereafter (I am a terminal cancer patient and my funds and time are limited). I wish that Ancestry had such exact standards when I was amassing my ponderous, sloppy file.

I don't want my file to clog up your server space awaiting corrections and later inclusion so if you can delete it and my subscription then I will not feel so guilty having submitted such a mess. I tried to find the option to just send a message to an admin or to remove my GEDCOM and subscription myself but I am unable to do so. Thank you again for creating such a wonderful project and God speed!

Ronald Tucker User Name: Uwharries--Uwharries 19:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

No worries, I've taken care of it. I'm very sorry to hear about your cancer. Get well and we hope to see you again soon!--Dallan 05:00, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Another spammer needs to be blocked [31 May 2018]

https://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=User:BrigidaHoke570&rcid=19184124 https://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=The_Reality_About_Exercise_And_Weight_Loss_Plan&rcid=19184125

-- I don't have the ability to block users.--Susan Irish 07:00, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

another spammer

https://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=User:KandisFreitag05&rcid=19185026

https://www.werelate.org/w/index.php?title=Pandora_Hopes_To_Lift_100M_For_IPO&rcid=19185027

I have blocked both of them - thanks.

Would you like the ability to block spammers?--Dallan 17:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

yes --Susan Irish 17:28, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

more spammers -- I couldn't block

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:CarenFoos2451

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:KathleenTuckfiel

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:CathleenCarrol

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:LauriDandridge

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:CUYBrittney

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:LatashiaSoundy

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:CelindaMccombs0

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:KatrinNies45549

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:RuthHorgan53939

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:AmandaBisson4

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:BobHowie5914

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:KristineStrode6

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:MeaganDendy61

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/User:LeandroJoris

I blocked all of the spammers and gave you the ability to block spammers too. When you're looking at their user page, you should be able to select "Block User" from the "More" menu on the left-hand side. Thank you for your help!--Dallan 15:07, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RickQuintana50

--Jrich 13:33, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

gedcom review [18 June 2018]

Sorry to bother you. I uploaded my gedcom, I understand I need to review it. I see the 8 steps I should follow, step 4 the people tab says click on a person on the list. What list? I don't see a list or any way to get to a list. I find the help tab to be useless. The video says I should get an email and click on a link in the email. The only email I got takes me to the 8 steps which are just instructions. I'm confused, I can't get to the review process. Don Nash--Don Nash 22:02, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Go to this URL: http://www.werelate.org/gedcom/index.php?gedcomId=12832 The most important tab is the warnings tab: "2. Warnings" near the upper left corner of the page. Click on that tab. You will see a list of about a dozen warnings in the top half of the page. The "alert" lines are informational. But several of the lines say "warning" or "error". You should review those and attempt to correct them before importing your gedcom. Sometimes the easiest way to correct them is to make changes in your desktop genealogy software, then delete your current upload and upload a new gedcom. Or you can edit the pages by clicking on "Edit" in the lower half of the page. It's up to you. The next tab, "3. People", shows you who will be included in the import. Let me know if you have any other questions.--Dallan 12:54, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

GEDCOM Export Ready [28 July 2018]

The GEDCOM for tree sq tree is ready to download. Click here.